Gabriel Agreste: Origins
by Maruru the Kouhai
Summary: Even before Ladybug and Chat Noir, there were superheroes protecting Paris from evildoers. Oh, there was the charming and witty Monsieur Paon, peacock-themed savior of Paris, and the beautiful, flirty Mademoiselle Papillon, butterfly-themed superheroine. But who were these two really behind the mask? They were Gabriel Agreste and Lynette Bouchard, normal students at normal school.


This is a fanfiction about the teenage versions of some of the adults in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom. These adults will include:

Tom Dupain, age 15

Sabine Cheng, age 14

Gabriel Agreste, age 16 (Le Paon)

Lynette Bouchard, age 16 (Mademoiselle Papillon)

Nathalie Sancoeur, age 16

Lucas Boulle (Gorilla), age 17 – failed a grade

Audrey Dufour (Chloe's mother), age 16

Andre Bourgeois, age 17

Ships (civilian): Eventual Gabriel/Lynette, one-sided Nathalie/Gabriel (I always had a headcanon that young Nathalie had a bit of a crush on Gabriel since they're so alike.), eventual Lucas/Nathalie, Tom/Sabine, one-sided Audrey/Gabriel, eventual Andre/Audrey.

Love square:

Lynette likes Gabriel

Mademoiselle Papillon likes Gabriel

Gabriel likes Mademoiselle Papillon

Monsieur Paon likes Mademoiselle Papillon

"Class, I'd like to welcome our new student, Nathalie Sancoeur. She transferred here from Jules and will be studying fashion alongside the rest of you from now on."

The rest of the class chorused a "welcome" to the new student, and the teacher, a Madame Maigre (a thin, reedy woman with hair that was likely once ginger but now a sad auburn that reminded many students of dead leaves), tutted as she picked out a seat for her newest charge.

"Now now, a good spot for you to sit...ah! There, an open seat. You may take the one to the right, as the other one is occupied, if only the student who _occupied_ it would arrive to class on time... Now, on to attendance."

Mm. Maigre proceeded to call out each student's name and had progressed to _F_ when the supposed student who occupied the seat next to Nathalie arrived.

"S-sorry...I'm late – again!" The student leaned against the door to catch his breath before fumbling with his supplies and dropping his sketchbook.

The thin and reedy teacher fixed him with a severe glare and he ducked his head, picking up the spiral notebook.

"Goodness, Gabriel, this is the _third_ time this week you've been late."

"I know, I know, but my cat needed feeding! And by the time I'd packed my lunch the warning bell had already rung," Gabriel Agreste muttered.

A few snickers floated around the classroom.

She fixed her glasses on her nose and huffed. "You are a very talented student with a knack for fashion, Gabriel, but if you cannot even make time for the classes to _learn_ any fashion, you will not get anywhere in life!"

He nodded and pulled out his chair, noticing there was a new student sitting next to him. _Oh, so there's a new girl in class. And she's sitting next to me,_ he thought.

Gabriel pushed thoughts of the new student aside and set down his spiral notebook and backpack, producing a pencil from said backpack. He looked up at Mm. Maigre and wrote down a couple bullets from the PowerPoint presentation on color scheme, " _Never mix warm colors with dark colors. They will clash and your work will look garish and tacky. You will ,"_ before glancing at the girl next to him. He could hear her pencil scratching on the notebook paper she was using and it was kind of bothering him a little bit? She caught his eye, arching her eyebrow at him.

Not sure what to say, Gabriel ducked his head and focused on his note-taking. Fashion had always been easier than socialization for him. Her expression was neutral, but not one of general complaisancy, so he didn't know how to engage her in conversation. Perhaps if her expression was more like, say, his friend Lynette Bouchard's, it would be easier. That girl always wore a smile on her face.

Granted, sometimes those smiles were when she was beating someone up because they'd teased her about her freckles, or they'd teased her friend Renee about her red hair...but a smile was a smile.

Still, the girl next to him continued to scratch her pencil on the notebook paper. She really needed to sharpen it...

Gabriel glanced at her again, before dodging the look she returned and looking at his notes again.

God, was this like a game or something? Try and catch her eye and then look away? Curse his unfathomable socializing skills!

 _What is her name? I can't be expected to interact with her if I don't know her name!_

5 minutes ticked by, and still that _scritchy-scritch_ ing noise continued to haunt him. He fixed the glasses that had perched on the edge of his nose, poised to fall off.

Gabriel risked _another_ glance at Scratchy Girl, only to find her eyes already on him. He blushed, caught in the act.

The girl blinked at him apathetically before pulling out a Post-It Note from her satchel and writing something down on it, passing it over to Gabriel's desk.

He frowned and unfolded it, eyes scanning the four simple words she'd written down in bubbly, but neat letters.

 _It's impolite to stare._

Flushing with embarrassment, he set down the sticky note on his desk and started writing something back.

 _I'm sorry, I just di_

"Gabriel, what exactly is that in your hand that has you in knots? Oh, passing notes in class, are you? I expected better from you, Gabriel. You should be setting a good example for Nathalie."

If he had been embarrassed before, he was now. Red-handed and crimson-faced, he nodded and ducked his head, determined not to look again at Scratchy Girl.

"Ah, um...yes, sorry. I'm very sorry!" he managed to spit out.

Two seats behind him and one seat to his left, Lynette Bouchard was about to burst out laughing at the mortified expression on Gabriel's face. Oh, he was so shy and cute. How precious! She just wanted to hug him tightly.

Ah, yes, Lynette Bouchard. The friend Gabriel had been thinking of earlier. She'd been in his class since their third year of middle school, but they hadn't interacted much then since they sat on opposite sides of the room. Plus, they were kinda opposites. Where Gabriel was shy, Lynette was outgoing. Where Gabriel was reserved, Lynette always let people know what she was thinking. Where Gabriel was quiet, Lynette was a social butterfly...literally.

She and Gabriel had become friends last year, when she'd sat in front of him in their Chinese class together.

(Forgive me French people if I'm off the mark on this, I don't live in France so I have no idea how your language classes work)

They'd had to do a project where they'd make a poster on Chinese culture. Lynette, Gabriel, and the other member of their party, a gorilla of a boy named Lucas, had been assigned Chinese cuisine.

Lynette had transferred into the class late from Italian I courtesy of her father, who'd thought Chinese would be more help if she ever travelled the world. _Why would I want to travel the world? I'm perfectly happy here in France!_ Gabriel and Lucas had offered to let her join their group even though she didn't know any of the language or culture of China because she'd just transferred. Unfortunately that left things mainly to Gabriel, since Lucas wasn't much help with the poster because he wasn't very artistic.

But Gabriel had been so nice! He'd been a big help, offering to tutor her with the symbols she wasn't familiar with and showing her the difference...and he was so artsy too! It was kinda cute. He was almost more like a girl than a boy.

Since then, the three of them had been pretty good friends.

Sitting in his seat, Gabriel was unaware of the effect he was having on his friend. He was _completely focused_ on remaining silent and on task for the rest of the class period.

 _Scritch-scritch._

And on ignoring that. God, he was going to have to get used to that. Wait, didn't he have a sharpener in his backpack?

He heaved the purple bag up to his desk (and man, was it heavy!) and dug around for a few moments before he procured a single green sharpener.

Glancing over at Scratchy Girl, _this was the_ last time _he would do so_ , he handed her the sharpener without a word.

Surprised, the girl sharpened her pencil and just as silently passed it back.

Gabriel attempted a shy smile at her before packing the sharpener and returning to the lesson.

 _Brrrrring-a-ling-a-ling!_ The bell rang.

Everybody started to pack up their things. Gabriel thought this would be a good time to explain to the girl next to him what had happened earlier, with the staring, and all that...

Yeah.

"Um, hello?" He tapped her on the shoulder, looking at his desk.

"Hm? Yes, what is it?" she asked, turning to face him with a neutral expression.

"Um...about...earlier. I-I didn't mean t-to stare or anything! I just didn't know – I didn't know your name and I wanted to ask...but I didn't know how. I'm not a conversationalist if you can't already tell..."

She nodded. "Oh. I understand."

"Oh, you do?"

"Yes, completely."

Gabriel scratched his head. "Oh, well uh, then, I should have asked!"

"Apparently so."

He blinked. "Are you going to tell me your name?"

She almost seemed amused. "Am I?"

He frowned. "Seriously, just tell me your name already! I'm waiting, you know!" he snapped.

She blushed and he cupped his mouth, horrified.

"Oh, o-oh, I'm s-so sorry! I-I didn't mean to snap like that! I'm—I'm so sorry! That was rude!" he stammered.

But all she did was...smile. She actually smiled. "My name is Nathalie. In case you were wondering," she added with a chuckle.

 _Of course I was wondering! Geez!_

"Oh, um, it's nice to meet you...Nathalie."

He held out her hand and she shook it.

"I have a cat too, so I understand what you were going through earlier when you were getting to school. He's an orange tabby named Moffy and he's fluffy and lazy," Nathalie said.

"Really? Does he shed all over your house, like Pocky? Mine's black and he meows all the time," Gabriel deadpanned.


End file.
